98 



material with which students are to be made famiHar, and not 

 enough as a method of thinking, an attitude of mind, after the 

 pattern of which mental habits are to be transformed." Two of 

 the most serious difficulties that confront the educator are the 

 number of sciences and the " indefinite bulk of the material in 

 each, making it seem as if the educational availability of science 

 were breaking down because of its own sheer mass." In the 

 secondary school the rival claims of (i) a little of a great many 

 sciences, (2) a good deal of one, (3) a combination of one exact 

 and one biological science, and (4) full option of one to three 

 sciences from the six or more given have not helped in the solu- 

 tion of the main problem. Attention is called to the fact that 

 laboratory methods do not of themselves influence the pupil or 

 student ; that one's mental attitude is not necessarily changed 

 because he handles certain tools and materials. They are part 

 of the ritual — and too often only that. Dr. Dewey further states 

 that "the future of our civilization depends upon the widening 

 spread and deepening hold of the scientific habit of mind ; and 

 that the problem of problems is therefore to discover how to 

 mature and make effective this scientific habit." 



German foresters are importing larch seeds from Montana and 

 white pine seedings from Ontario. 



Evaporation experiments made with cotton or wax spread over 

 evaporating surfaces of saturated blotting paper {Science, March 

 18) have led Professor Wiegand of Wellesley to conclude that 

 plants may "make use of waxy coverings when transpiration is 

 to be retarded at all times, and hairy coverings when it is to be 

 retarded only if exposed to strong dry winds and sunshine." 



The United States government spends about two cents an acre 

 on the national forests. Germany and Switzerland, it is said, 

 spend one to two dollars an acre. It would seem, therefore, that 

 the appropriations for the coming year should be increased, in- 

 stead of lessened ; and increased not only as a gross sum because of 



